Monday, August 26, 2019

Plenty to Go Around: Part 3

Plenty to Go Around: Part 3
project: approximately 80" x 80"
follow progress on Instagram with #plentytogoaroundquilt

I have some more process photos to share with you! The first is the center flower.  You can see my pencil lines on the white fabric below.  I had to learn a lot for this project.  Usually, that darned tjanting tool drips a lot of dots of wax, so I had to up my skill level for this to work like I planned.  Also, the tjanting tool only holds a discrete amount of liquid wax.  It draws wax lines for a bit and then it runs out of wax, and you have to dip back into your container of liquid wax to refill it.  What is not obvious, is that when you first start drawing with the tool, the lines are thick, and as you get near the end of the supply in the tjanting, the lines get thinner.  It's all about temperature.  The wax is hottest when you first fill the tjanting, and that's when the lines are thick.  As the tjanting begins to cool, the wax lines get thinner and thinner.  To get an even thickness of line is really, really difficult.  So, though you may see a few wobbly and imperfect lines, I am quite proud that I was able to get close to a reasonably even line thickness.  I also learned how to stop and start my lines without them being too terribly visible, which is also quite tricky.  

Now that the lines are finished,
It is time to fill the spaces with dye:
This stage is the BEST part!! I love adding the color.  I also like the intense look of the dyes while they are wet, because once they have finished processing, they are always lighter.
Here is the finished flower, processed, and wax boiled out, hand trimmed with scissors and pinned to the center of the quilt.

This quilt is all about scale, and value, and repetition, and symmetry.  It will be fun to watch it emerge!

Next up, the fawns:
I opted for a light blue line (instead of white), for the definition of the fawns.  This translates to dyeing the background fabric a nice light blue first, then waxing, then bleach discharging. Here they are after the bleach and copious water wash stage, still pinned to the frame.
After bleaching, I drew in the details of the eye and the spots on the near-white parts of the body. Then I started with the dyes.  The dots and eyes were dyed first.  Then, I put extra wax on top to protect them from the stage where I dyed the body turquoise.  You may wonder what all the white lines are?  I was making some flower stems for later.  Not sure if this idea will work or not, but it's not looking too good at this stage.....we shall see!
Colors are: blue spots, brown eyes and nose, turquoise body, light blue outline, and blue hooves and black eye detail.
Here is the fawn after processing the dyes, and boiling the wax out, and sewn onto the quilt:
There will be four fawns around the center flower.  Stay tuned!

2 comments:

Mary Ann said...

Thank you for sharing the details of your process. When people only see the final piece they are missing so much of what goes into the quilt, the hundreds of decisions, what did not work, what the original vision was. I have started doing a lot more documentation of process due to your inspiring posts!
Mary Ann Nailos

Kathy York said...

Thanks Mary Ann! I appreciate your input and am glad that you are enjoying these posts! :)